Thoughts on the Gateron Yellow mechanical key switches
In almost one year of using mechanical keyboards, I have spent about half my time with tactile switches and the remainder with linear ones. The switch I have used the most is the Keychron K Pro Silver (Thoughts on the Keychron Banana and Silver mechanical key switches).
Overall, linears are easier for me because they do not tire me out when I am writing prose and are perfectly fine for coding. Expository writing and programming feel very different to me. I write prose in one go, meaning that I produce a wall of text without going back and forth, and then follow it up with a quick review for typos. As such, I spend many minutes typing non-stop. Tactile switches create this at least tiny pulsating effect, which becomes especially noticeable after ~20 minutes of continuous writing. It leads to fatigue and breaks my flow. Tactiles are fine while programming, due to the fact that the pace is varied: part of the time is spent moving around in a text buffer with the intent of performing a surgical edit. But because most of my time involves email correspondence, journal entries, and essays, I default to linear switches.
As I am recovering from RSI, the Silvers are starting to feel too light and restrictive. I cannot avoid bottoming out hard and end up losing momentum as I type. I thus decided to make a quality-of-life refinement to my setup, in the form of the Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow switches. After a couple of weeks of full-time usage, I am happy with my decision.
How the Yellows compare to the Silvers
| Switch name | Feedback | Operating force | Pre-travel | Total travel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keychron K Pro Silver | Linear | 45±8gf | 1.3±0.3mm | 3.3mm±0.2mm |
| Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow | Linear | 50±15gf | 2.0±0.6mm | 4.0mm Max |
I got those numbers from the websites of Keychron and Gateron, respectively, but I am not providing any links because I am not affiliated with anyone and do not want this to be interpreted otherwise.
What these metrics mean in practice is that the Yellows feel more substantive than the Silvers. They are less likely to be activated by mistake due to the combination of their longer pre-travel and heavier weight. But they are not heavy by any means. Each switch still feels light to the touch, especially in the real world scenario of typing words at speed.
A measurement I have not been able to find on Keychron’s website is the bottom out force for the Silvers. That of the Yellows is 67gf. The Silvers feel considerably lighter in this regard, so I am inclined to put the value at ~50gf. This, in combination with the aforementioned mean that I do not bottom out hard with the Yellows even when I am writing at my maximum speed (which is not too high, by the way). The added resistance at the bottom offers a cushion and gives a small boost to my fingers as they move around the keyboard.
Based on this exposure, I can tell how the slope of the force curve contributes to the overall experience. In linear switches, when the delta between the operating and bottom-out forces is small, the key press feels like there is nothing there to prevent you from bottoming out at maximum speed and thus losing momentum. Whereas the greater delta results in an increasingly more resistant press that eases the bottoming out and propels the fingers back to the top, thus keeping the momentum going. This is my understanding based on real-world typing (e.g. writing this article), not some test involving isolated key presses.
In terms of build quality, both switches have about the same stem wobble in all directions. It is moderate, though my Cherry profile keycaps help minimise it. I assume that taller caps, such as the SA profile, would emphasise the wobbliness and thus highlight it as a weakness of both models.
The Silvers have a stem with the familiar MX cross shape, plus walls on the side. Those are touted as “dust-proof”, though I cannot tell how much of that is empty marketing palaver or a genuine improvement to the de facto standard shape. The Yellows have no such walls. Perhaps, this reinforced stem does make a difference, but I would need to compare, say, a Yellow with and without it (ceteris paribus) to form a better opinion. All I can point out now is that the two switches are both moderately wobbly.
Where the Yellows are the clear winner is on the smoothness front. I cannot sense any scratch while typing. Same for when I try to press down on keys off-centre. Furthermore, all switches are consistent across the entire batch. The Silvers have always been scratchy and they are inconsistent as well. However, I do not want to make this seem like a major issue because it never poses a problem while typing: I probably wrote tens of thousand of words in the past months with the Silvers and have no complaints about them. The scratch has an effect on the acoustics but, again, it is minor and I would never consider it a deal-breaker either way.
A small change to match my needs
When my RSI was at its peak, the Silvers felt like a blessing: their light weight and early actuation point required minimal effort from my side. Though I was always relatively slow with them. Now that I am stronger and faster, their relative strengths have turned into considerable hindrances.
By discovering how the slope of a linear switch contributes to its performance, I have learnt a valuable lesson for the future and will be able to make more informed decisions that match my needs. The gist is that there is no such thing as a perfect switch: it all depends on the use-case and particular needs.
The Yellows are a fine product that meets my expectations, especially given their budget-friendly cost. They are clearly not a top-tier offering, but have many merits. If I were to iterate on this platform, I would like to have the same metrics for the force curve as well as equally good smoothness, combined with little to no stem wobble, and, if possible, a slightly more subdued sound.
This is where we get into the dangerous zone with mechanical keyboards and my instinct is to hold myself back. We can spend inordinate amounts of money in pursuit of the unicorn of flawless performance, only to end up with something that is, at best, marginally better than the average offering. The Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow switches check all the boxes for me and comfortably pass the test of being “good enough”.